I realize that this is heresy, but it’s time that papers drop AP’s political coverage (or at least any piece bylined by Fournier). It’s becoming pretty obvious that the AP’s political editor Ron Fournier has a dog in this race and isn’t just reporting the straight news (with or without extra commentary). His latest piece covering Clinton’s speech is pretty transparently lifting from Republican attacks on Obama:

From there, Fournier recites the very quotes from the Democratic primaries that the McCain campaign has been pushing desperately all week. So, to hear the AP’s Washington bureau chief tell it, the most important takeaway from Clinton’s stirring speech at the convention is the criticism she directed at Obama as far back as nine months ago. And this, coincidentally, just happens to be what Republicans want to see emphasized this week more than anything else.

Reading the Fournier piece shows that it’s entirely filled with speculation about Clinton’s motives and deepest desires, things Fournier can’t know because he actually hasn’t done any reporting. He’s interviewed no one, quotes no one, and does his psychoanalysis from afar. It’s embarrassing.

More importantly, he’s doing AP customers/members and their readers a disservice. These biases aren’t ideological but purely partisan and thus are completely useless to readers who want political news. In an ideal world, when choosing between a Republican and a Democrat, I don’t need to hear from someone who supports the Democrat and someone who supports the Republican, but from people who share goals I’m interested in (e.g. ending dependence on foreign oil, ending the war, preventing abortions, etc.) and then hearing how they measure the candidates among those goals.

Even in a color piece like this that’s supposed to give context to the events at the convention, Fournier should resist the temptation to add in sheer speculation about the motivations of people unless he has some mind reading device he hasn’t told the rest of us about. He’s literally making stuff up, which is pretty bad reporting.

I’m going to write more about this soon, but go read Benen’s piece at The Washington Monthly. He covers the ground on Fournier’s issues. Even mainstream outlets are starting to see some issues with Fournier’s reporting. What’s worse is that he’s in charge of their political reporting, so his hand is in a lot of the political coverage coming out of the AP.

Which brings me back to the headline of this piece.